I have so many people loving my photos that I publish for Weekly Winners and A Thousand Words Thursday, and for that, thank you. I love shooting anything and everything. My camera is not too shabby, Canon Power Shot S5IS, but it isn't top of the line by ANY means.

I've said it before, I owe all my talent to Photoshop, and Pioneer Woman's Actions. I'm not good at tutorials and screenshots and such. I so want to take over the keyboard for all of you virtually to literally SHOW you how to work PS...but I'll give a general explanation of what I do. If you know PS or Elements, you'll get me, if not, just know there's more to my photos than just the camera.

For example, my recent ATWT entry. Here's what it looks like SOOC (straight out of the camera)...Then after touching it up in PS...

1.I first crop the shot. K's big hair and the toy and the fence...all that stuff isn't the point of my photo, so I try to center the bubble and her puckered mouth.

2.Next I size the photo to it fits in my blog space from the original size, usually 520 pixels wide. (The orgininal size is about 3200 pixels wide).

3.Now I can work with it in photoshop a bit easier. I sharpened the whole shot once, then highlight just the bubble with the magnetic lasso tool.

4.Next, I go to Image>adjustments>levels. I change the input to about 66 and the output to about 93, for this particular shot. I HAVE NO IDEA what any of this means. It's all stuff that i've learned to play with in my PS experience. But, it brightens the over all shot and makes the color pop a bit more. Each pic I use will have diff input/output number.

5.Pioneer Woman has a set of "actions" that she created to enhance her own photos. She offers them free on her blog and I loaded those to my PS. For this shot I used her "BOOST" action. This created the extra burst of color to the overall picture. The grass is greener with some fabulous light hitting it, the bubble wand in pinker and more vibrant. It brightens and warms the photo, it's my fave of all her actions!

If I don't work the boost action, I go to Image>adjustments>brightness/contrast and play with that a little, for depth.

6.Finally for this shot, I used the rectangular marquee tool with the 'feather' set at 40px and make a shape around the outer edge of the photo. Select inverse and then using the color black I hit 'delete' and it adds an dark edge burn around the photo. Select inverse again and then I brighten the main section of the shot once more with levels from #4.

Ouila! I add my watermark last in text and lower the opacity and then i'm done.

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supporters in group:

AWESOME job!! I have PS,Elements and Lightroom... I've seen her actions but just have not taken the time to 'play' with a pic. That also takes a pretty good eye for what is attractive. either way....K is adorable!

Thanks for sharing. I had as S2-IS, and I LOVED that camera, that is until it died on NYE. I recently tried to have it repaired as a backup or camera for Tara and it was not repairable, and I was sad. I have always thought no matter the camera, you still have to have a good eye, which you certainly do. I need to get better with people photos, but Tara is at the age where she no longer wants to be the subject of too many, and I need to respect that!

I need to work more with editing, most of my pics are straight from the camera. Now that I'm retired... well I will be as of 5pm today, maybe I will find more time to practice!

Thanks for sharing this! I just got a new camera and am determined to take better pictures. Of course I have NO idea how to work 99% of the stuff on the new camera but whatever, lol. I am pretty handy with the photo editing software though, so I will have to try some of these tricks!